BT overcharging because of billing systems change

julesuk71

Has anyone been overcharged on their direct debit this month?

I have spoken to BT today and I am fuming!! They have overcharged me by £15 because they are updating their billing systems. Instead of paying for line rental from 1st to 1st of the month, they are now doing it from 11th to 11th of the month. So, for this they are having to charge everyone an extra 11days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was no warning of this, no apology letter, nothing!!!!

It makes me soooooooooooo mad that they can just do this.

Im just about to make a call to Ofcom.

Jules

dzug1

Can they change the system - yes.

But if they didn't tell you in advance of the higher payment then they have broken the rules of the direct debit scheme.

You could claim back from your bank, but that has the potential to backfire on you. The bank will cancel the DD, and BT will withdraw your DD discount until you set it up again with them

notbritishgas

Yes Jules this is happening to everybody (I think) and as you say it is because of the change to the new billing system whereby they are changing the billing dates.
What it means is you are paying for line rental further in advance and this extra should only last this bill, the next one should be normal. I am not defending Bt, just explaining, as tied up with this change there are further underhand tactics being employed which do extract money from your account. There are a few threads on here about this so I will not go into it.
I do not understand though how 11 days extra rental comes to £15.

Heinz

notbritishgas wrote: »

I do not understand though how 11 days extra rental comes to £15.

I think the OP means £15 instead of £11.25

caeler

I think I had this back in May. I noticed that one month my bill was double and after trying to read through it all it turns out they went from paying in arrears to now paying up front for services. Hope that makes sense. I might of had prior warning but I don't remember it!

eschaton

bluefuzzybug wrote: »

I think I had this back in May. I noticed that one month my bill was double and after trying to read through it all it turns out they went from paying in arrears to now paying up front for services. Hope that makes sense. I might of had prior warning but I don't remember it!

I had this earlier in the year too. No advanced warning and a reply to the complaint that suggested BT didn't understand what they were doing themselves.

fruitpie

Hi all,

Shock this month when I checked my bank, BT had taken extra money from my account without an explanation.

They have taken £7. 48 extra for weekend and evening plan for the period of 1st Nov - 15th Nov and £9.94 extra for BB Option 2, also for the same period.

When I finally got through to BT tonight, (very frustrating all those Options to choose from and none that actually get you through to a person,) the girl was flustered and totally incapable of being able to explain these extra charges. She just tried to fob me off by saying go to the BT web site.

I seems that they are updating their billing system and their customers just have to pay-up. I can imagine people possibly going overdrawn as BT have not communicated this charge to its customers.

I am normally a fan of BT but after this scull duggery !!!! - Shame on you BT.

marvic31

I have now moved to Sky Talk as i am fed up with BT and there charges. Our recent bill just delivered a few days ago had me paying in advance until the end of February.

Every time a new bill is available to view, BT seem to include new charges for something

Luckily i had switched to sky before the start of the new billing period.

BT_company_representative

Hi fruitpie

I am sorry for any confusion caused by your most recent BT bill. The reason for the extra line rental appearing on your bill is due a migration of your billing to meet the billing cycle of the area that you live in, due to this it does mean that at if your billing cycle had passed we then had to wait for the billing cycle to come back around and this can result in us billing you for more than the standard 3 months that would normally appear on your bill. I can assure you that your next bill will be back to normal and you will only be paying the standard 3 months line rental on your bill. We do advise on the front page of the bill the amount that is due to be taken and the date that the payment will be requested from your bank to allow you to have the funds available.

Regards David

Pete*G_4

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi fruitpie

I am sorry for any confusion caused by your most recent BT bill. The reason for the extra line rental appearing on your bill is due a migration of your billing to meet the billing cycle of the area that you live in, due to this it does mean that at if your billing cycle had passed we then had to wait for the billing cycle to come back around and this can result in us billing you for more than the standard 3 months that would normally appear on your bill. I can assure you that your next bill will be back to normal and you will only be paying the standard 3 months line rental on your bill. We do advise on the front page of the bill the amount that is due to be taken and the date that the payment will be requested from your bank to allow you to have the funds available.

Regards David

Hi David, it's nice to see a BT rep trying to help

However I have another query... How do you explain billing someone for three months in advance for the full cost of BB and Vision, when they should have received two months BB completely free, and a further month at a reduced rate, and a month's Vision free with two months reduced rate. I was messed about left right and centre and it took a month and a half to finally be activated after you had my MAC code, yet my previous BB supplier said the line was clear of their flags within 2 days :rolleyes:

BT_company_representative

Hi Pete*G

Thanks our role here is to try to offer help where possible.

To answer your questions with the special offer charges for the first three months would appear as normal but there should be a credit also applied to the bill to cancel this out.

If this isn't case, I can have this investigated for you. Drop me an e-mail to btcare@bt.com with the full details and I will try to see if I can get you the credits you should have received.

I can't comment without more information as to why the changeover order for Broadband Took so long but if you supply information on this, I can have it looked at for you as well.

Stuart